Always disappointing when one's equipment lets one down...and the resulting lingering paranoia about the failed components on subsequent rides after fixing the issue...at least for me. Although 20K is a decent amount of service to get out of the wheel!

My rides yesterday afternoon and this morning were uneventful.Pretty chilly at 6.5C and mist over the parklands and creeks on the way into the Melbourne CBD.

Two SMIDSYs who moved left without checking for bikes yesterday evening and would have pushed me into the gutter if I wasn't cautious about that sort of thing, which I usually am. I practiced my shouting 'Oi!' technique. I don't think either heard me until I went onto the driver's side and told them off later as they probably aren't thinking the shouting applies to them. (Both incidents were in peak hour traffic where the cars weren't moving anywhere fast)

What a beautiful crisp (and quite cold) sunny morning this morning. A motorcyclist chatted to me about the weather at one set of lights. It was lovely. I like it when people are friendly and have a chat while waiting.

Nice crisp morning - set off at the same time as a neighbour in her car, there was a skip truck loading up & blocking up 90% of the street ... which is a cul-de-sac. I slipped through the 60cm or so space that was left, not sure how long my neighbour will have been stuck there, another win for this smug cycle commuter

The not-so-good news - showers in my building are out after a pipe blew a couple of weeks ago, and apparently not high on the priority list. I now have a nice cross-campus cooldown trudge to the nearest alternative, which happens to take me past the cafe with the nice muffins

I had a 4 day break from commuting so getting back Monday was fantastic. Fresh legs felt like I was flying and saw a brilliant sunset again. Even got some other commuter bike parts delivered so glowing with the Christmas high feeling, the new saddles were loaded with the parts inside and over top the rear bag, new French stainless fenders through the Italian grab handle, and the ever useful $2 pair of Swedish Fasty.se straps holding it down to the Swiss Pletscher rack, on the probably mostly Asian made components of USA bike. United Nations bitzer The fenders hung out a bit wide 72cm across but didn't clip/catch anybody on the way home.

Although not as much of a bulky whale ride home as the dozen tyres last week =D

Had some douche riders in the morning seems to be worse, cutting front wheels close for no reason in passing with oncoming bikes for 3 abreast close shaves in tight traffic with no gains passing them at next traffic change... but it did make for entertaining footage to share with fellow rider colleagues in show and tell for douches of the day videos.

Found it tough this morning. HR was hitting low 170s, 10pbm above my peaks over the last few weeks, and the speed was poor.

I'm blaming sitting on my backside all weekend after stabbing myself in the ribs with the end of my handlebar on last weeks mtb night ride.

Bike control was terrible, too. Felt quite unsteady lane splitting the stationary traffic, and had a few brain fades. This one euro car had orange front running lights in the corner of its headlights, which at first glance along with her slow speed entering the roudnabout I took to be the left turn indicator ... except it wasn't.

Royally stuffed that up... I'm sure all the drivers were wondering what the hell was going through my head.

A distinguished older gentleman in the elevator said to me( out of the blue) this evening "I'm really tempted to press your hooter"

Of course, he was talking about my bright pink girl's horn that is attached to my cycling bag. But there were two other people in the lift and before I responded nicely and they realised what he was talking about I think their eyes popped out of their sockets.

Since I was in a lift in my work building I couldn't come back with anything suggestive like 'you can touch it' and just did the nice office-y response. It gave me a laugh.

Not so good news though as on the way home on the corner of Albert and Clarendon (outside the Tribeca apartment blocks) East Melbourne there was an ambulance on the scene around 6pm for what looked to be a cyclist down ( ambo was taking a bike to the ambulance and there was a female cyclist on the scene too with a phone in hand). Hope they are okay.

Had a weekend away with heaps of strangers and friends. Did a fair bit of eating and drinking. But by getting up well before everyone else I got to do respectable rides in the early morning light and haze each day.

Remarkably quiet on country roads. Though I did have a dead roo by the side of the road for company.

Had a weekend away with heaps of strangers and friends. Did a fair bit of eating and drinking. But by getting up well before everyone else I got to do respectable rides in the early morning light and haze each day.

Remarkably quiet on country roads. Though I did have a dead roo by the side of the road for company.

I've ridden a bike out that way, over 35 years ago now, when I used to live in Mt Helena... damn, I'm getting old .

Last edited by VRE on Wed May 01, 2013 7:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

Since I moved to Melbourne 4.5 years ago, I've been doing early starts and finishes, typically 6:30 to 3:30, and so my "morning" (actually pre-dawn) commute is straight along Maroondah Highway because traffic between 5 and 6am is minimal. In the afternoon, to avoid the traffic, which is already building up by that time, I ride a few inner-city roads to Yarra Blvd, along the Blvd, then the Main Yarra and Koonung Creek Trails, then about 2km of local roads in Donvale and Ringwood North. So my commute to work is about 27km and from work is 33.5km.

Now I'm about to transition to a new role at work, which will involve some on-the-job training and will necessitate me working more 9 to 5 hours, so I'll be using the from-work commuting route to ride to work, which means my 302.5km weekly commute will blow out to about 335km, with even more hill-climbing. I'm actually looking forward to the change . I guess I must be addicted to cycling. The 2 commutes per day will be a bit different also because I'll be riding in more conventional commuting hours, so there will no doubt be more cyclists on the paths and roads.

I think adjusting to the new work hours will be tougher than adjusting to the new commuting routine, because I've been working these early starts and finishes for about 10 years now.

Pleasant ride via MYT through to Greensborough, Bundoora and finally home. Entertained by some roos along the path next to the Greensborough Highway climbing up to Bundoora.Cool start again this morning for the ride into the Melb CBD, prepared for showers, but nothing much eventuated.

rheicel wrote:^^^nice to see those roos while riding. We have to go to the zoo to see them here!

I get to see roo's on my ride too, the only issue is that they are usually splattered across the highway or on the edge and they stink to high heaven. Had refreshing change yesterday riding home....saw a huge bloated cow on the side..poor thing...and it stunk too. Just wondered if it was a car or semi which hit it. Either would have some serious damage I reckon as it was a big critter

gretaboy wrote:I get to see roo's on my ride too, the only issue is that they are usually splattered across the highway or on the edge and they stink to high heaven. Had refreshing change yesterday riding home....saw a huge bloated cow on the side..poor thing...and it stunk too. Just wondered if it was a car or semi which hit it. Either would have some serious damage I reckon as it was a big critter

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